Our Part in Atonement

“Everyone has a special part to play in the Atonement, but the message given to each one is always the same; God’s Son is guiltless.  Each one teaches the message differently, and learns it differently.  Yet until he teaches it and learns it, he will suffer the pain of dim awareness that his true function remains unfulfilled in him.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-14.V.2)

There is a course for every teacher of God; this quotation says this, using different words.  All of us are separated as student and teacher only in time, and time does not really exist.  God’s Son is guiltless; it is only in time that we have made mistakes that need rectifying.  Each of us comes to believe this truth differently, for each of us is unique in our particular thought patterns and our experiences of this world (and other worlds, we might assume).

Our function is to teach and learn the truth that we are guiltless in eternity.  This is not our only function, but our various functions, as mentioned in A Course in Miracles, are One in intent.  These functions vary from salvation to forgiveness to happiness.  All converge.  So the different words only seem to mean different things.  They don’t really.

We want to avoid pain, and so we want to avoid the pain of knowing that our function is unfulfilled until we have seen that we are truly guiltless.  But do we really believe this truth?  Perhaps not, perhaps it will take more study.  But begin to open the mind to the possibility that we, as Sons of God, are guiltless.  This will be enough for now.